Any business looking to bolster its online presence and increase market share needs to appear on Google’s SERP. However, if your goal is to increase sales or grow your website traffic, appearing on the first page isn’t enough.
The progression of Google from a search engine to an answer engine is pushing more users to complete their search without leaving the SERP. In this zero-click era, it has become crucial for businesses to occupy more real estate on a SERP, and engage more with search users.
This article focuses on the various ways to increase your organic click-through rate (CTR). These techniques will help you drive more targeted traffic to your site and boost your organic CTR. Also, you can leverage SEO packages from an experienced digital marketing company that will help you get similar benefits.
Creative Title Tags
A search engine results page or SERP display has a few components:
- The headline – is a blue-colored clickable link with the title of the page
- The description – a brief sneak peek of the details that are available on the page
- The URL – The address of the specific web page
Your listing’s title tag or headline is crucial for both the search engine and its users. So, what do you need to write irresistible titles?
Here are a few tips to get you started:
- A title tag length of 35 to 55 characters
- Using a SERP preview tool or SERP simulator to check tag length
- Placing the primary keyword at the beginning
- Avoiding keyword stuffing
- Emphasizing on capitalization
- Minimizing the use of stop words
Once you are through with this step of title tag writing, you can move to the next step.
Meta descriptions
The brief description below the headline in a SERP listing is pulled from the meta description of a web page. It helps to summarise a web page’s content.
A well-formulated meta description can have a positive impact on your CTR. 43% of such users click on your website due to the influence these 155 characters create on them.
Every 9/10 search users click on organic search results vis-à-vis paid advertisements. This scenario makes meta descriptions an even better opportunity for you to grab attention for your site.
You can have a click-worthy meta description using the following tips:
- Adhering to Google’s optimal length
- Adding your vital keywords
- Writing a descriptive copy
- Never duplicating any descriptions
- Including a call-to-action
If you have numerous pages on your website, you should optimize the most important ones.
Why does that strategy work?
It is because Google ignores meta description tags for more than 60% of its queries. Therefore, focusing your efforts on pages getting minimal visibility on the search page isn’t a great thing to have. It is especially true when Google’s descriptions perform better than the ones you have provided.
Descriptive URLs
URLs are the third element of a search listing. Studies suggest that keyword-rich and well-optimized URLs can increase organic CTR by 45%.
For example, users won’t prefer a site with the following URL:
60secondmarketer.com//d/1xEw3X66-hwi46qNedr65
Instead, they would prefer to click on:
60secondmarketer.com/blog/five-tips-for-SERP-ranking
So how can you create a click-worthy SEO-friendly URL?
Use the following tips:
- Include similar keywords you want to target in your URL
- Avoid the use of special characters, numbers, and stop words
- Use lowercase letters and hyphens to separate words instead of underscores
- Keeping the URL length short
The Low Performers
To achieve the best results, you need to optimize your title tag constantly. A solution that works well for title tag optimization is to identify the worst performers first.
To identify the underperformers, you can visit the Google Search Console and download your query data. Once you have data, you can plot them on a graph and identify the non-performing keywords. These deliver lower-than-expected click-through rates for their ranking position.
You can do a Google Ads blitz testing rather than comparing your performance over time and testing new title tags. These efforts will help you maximize your efforts.
In blitz testing, you need to create a set of ads with 10 different headlines. It will give you a better idea of identifying the headline that connects with your audience.
Rich Results
You can occupy more real estate on SERPs by leveraging the power of rich snippets. You can improve the visual appearance of your SERP listing by increasing its organic CTR while taking care of such intent.
Common schema types that work in the majority of businesses are:
- Review snippet – displays a new American star rating below the meta description
- Recipe rich data snippet- a step-by-step guide for a specific recipe
- How-to snippet- provides step-by-step instructions for a specific task
- Video snippet – displays video information
- Product snippet – displays your product information
- Search box snippet – Helps display your internal site search box within SERPs
As you can see, using the above strategies can help you experience higher organic traffic on your site. It can contribute significantly to the overall success of your SEO strategy, and lead to increased website conversions.